What do we have here?

[Svenn Ryen]

The picture is taken at Trandum Army Camp outside of Oslo. The boat training was part of preparations for crossing river "Nitelva" in Nittedal ion the Oslo city border in a large field exercise called "Bagler". Dwight D Eisenhower inspected parts of this exercise.

Here a couple of pics taken not far from where I live:

(what type of vehicle behind the jeep? Humber?) Click on link for pic:

http://www.picturegate.net/spWebApp/...teCreated=1951




You can see on the picture in the first post the Norwegian soldiers wearing german helmets and Mauser rifles.

The Norwegian army had almost none vehicles at the beginning of ww2, and after the war we first got vehicles from the british allied forces and later many US vehicles through the marchal program. There was a lack of weapons and uniform articles as well, so very much german equipment was used. The Norwegian army used WW2 jeeps until late 80's.

The vehicles on the picture are probably X-british army vehicles. We know from the reports from the exercise that they used many jeeps, GMC, 10 cwt GS jeep trailers, and Norton motorbikes.

I have som pics of the river crossing as well, showing the boats in action, I can post them as well if you like, though not showing any vehicles.

Svenn